


The Powerful Play Goes On, And You May Contribute A Verse

by DJFero



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Low Chaos (Dishonored), Post-Game, and Corvo and Daud make the worst action duo ever, but who's Batman and who's Robin?, in which the Outsider learns the meaning of fear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-24
Packaged: 2017-12-24 04:15:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJFero/pseuds/DJFero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Corvo." The Outsider pauses at length. Even his voice sounds distant, echoing from the furthest depths of the Void, though the passionless monotone is the same. The Outsider's tattered head tilts back, and Corvo thinks, to his own discomfort, that if the creature were ever half so human as he looks he might be taking a deep breath right about now. "Corvo," he begins again, haltingly. "I need--"</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>And whatever connection brought him here is severed unceremoniously. No sound or flash of darklight heralds the Outsider's sudden disappearance from his place over the shrine. He's just gone, and the warmth and light rushes back in all at once as if he were never there.</i></p><p> </p><p>Everything was going so well, finally, at long last, and Corvo was just beginning to think he could rest.</p><p>He was wrong. And his next adventure is a worthy challenge -- with his powers waning, and the Void unraveling, one is left to wonder: How can two (more or less) ordinary men succeed where it's a <i>god</i> that needs saving?</p><p>
  <b>[[Now with 100% more illustrations!]]</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rats!

**Author's Note:**

> Rating may go up due to violence and generally dark subject matter in later chapters.
> 
> The author is seldom a romantic man, and only a closeted shipper at the best of times. So no non-canon ships. However, readers may -- and are encouraged to -- indulge and enjoy whatever subtext they can find, whether intended by the author or not.
> 
> Cheers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Included are illustrations, done by myself.
> 
> I'll try to include at least one illustration per chapter, but they may have to be retroactively added in order to keep up the flow of the story. Also, please forgive their quality -- at the moment, I don't have a scanner and have to rely on cell phone snapshots. And without my tablet or Photoshop, the best editing I can do is quick lighting fixes on Photobucket. 
> 
> Outsider's eyes, I'm such a cheap artist...

Rats!  
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,  
And bit the babies in the cradles,  
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,  
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladle's,  
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,  
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,  
And even spoiled the women's chats  
By drowning their speaking  
With shrieking and squeaking  
In fifty different sharps and flats.

**\- Robert Browning, _The Pied Piper of Hamelin_**

 

* * *

 

It starts as many grand adventures will do, in a manner most innocuous and, frankly, kind of boring.

It starts with the _rats_.

They've been giving the kitchen staff hell by raiding the larder in packs, tenacious even in the face of several poisonings. On one memorable occasion, a suspiciously viscous and bubbling concoction dreamed up by Sokolov was employed. The kitchens were out of commission for the better part of a week while the fumes were being vented, and the slack was picked up by a series of emergency grill stations set up hastily on one of the patios; the sous chef's eyebrows have yet to grow back, and perhaps never will, and the lower section of the walls still bears deep pitting and gouging from where the compound devoured the stone with all the fervor of the nobility descending on cheap Serkonan street food at an _"avante garde"_ soiree.

Stomping on the rats' mangy kindred does nothing to dissuade the little bastards, either. On the contrary, after each show of violence they return in force to passive-aggressively avenge their fallen by taking it out on the potatoes.

It wouldn't have been a big deal a little over a year ago, before the disease and death. The plague is four months cured, now, all thanks to the combined genius of Piero and Sokolov. The distribution of their antigen -- branded "Joplin & Sokolov's Miracle Formula" after twenty minutes of griping and caterwauling as to which name should come first, a debate eventually curtailed by a stern look from Corvo and a good-natured suggestion by Emily that they just play rock-paper-scissors for it -- was a nightmare in terms of funding alone. Emily baulked at the notion of taxing the people for their salvation, just as her advisors (and her royal physician) baulked at hocking it for free. And that's not to even mention the labor: square one was the first hang-up, and square one was just rounding up enough trustworthy sorts to physically hand out the medicine. But the antigen and its uses in those early days were efficient, if a little disgusting. Ultimately ingenius. _Elegant_ , even.

It was manufactured in two 'molarities', explained at great length and with characteristic soft-spoken enthusiasm by Piero as the concentration of some sort of invisible particles per a given volume, which Corvo internally translated as 'watered down vs. not watered down.' The watered-down variant was the one safe for human consumption, the one handed out in the streets from the aristocracy of the Estates all the way down to the lowliest thugs and squatters in the Distillery District. As a show of good faith by the new Empress, too kind and forgiving (and perhaps too naive, or perhaps still, too clever for her age) to leave anyone out in the cold regardless of their past, a contingent of the Guard even made the trek down to the Flooded District in an attempt to distribute the formula now colloquially referred to as J&S to the Whalers. Granted, the unit was armed to the teeth for their own protection.

They never found the Whalers; the entirety of their contact with the elusive assassins was constrained to spying a lone sentry perched on a high and inaccessible rooftop, following their procession through the fathomless yellow lens-eyes of his (her?) mask with rapt and unnerving attention and making no effort to engage them in any capacity. It was a gesture that said, quite simply, 'you see one of us, and twenty of us see you. We are watching.' A few desperate sole survivors of otherwise eradicated families slithered out of the woodwork to get their fair share, but the Whalers never came to claim their own from the authorities' relief effort. Emily was a little put-off by the report, but it was forgotten in the face of the very next distraction to cross her path. Corvo could have told her how a contingent of guards would be received in the Flooded District, but he held his tongue. Couldn't fault the girl for trying, bless her heart.

A few dozen vials went unaccounted for, without explanation, only a few days later. The harried assistant in charge of keeping stock was let off with a light scolding, after Corvo's quiet but unyeilding intervention in the Guard Captain's accusations of theft, embezzlement, and suspected black market dealing.

He is of the belief that it was just Daud accepting the peace offering on his own terms, though Corvo wisely chose not to say as much aloud. No need to alarm the Captain with the notion of the previous Empress' killer getting unnoticed into the vault where the stock of vials are otherwise securely held -- within the heart of Dunwall Tower itself. Not that he recalls Daud with any particular fondness, but after meeting him Corvo is secure in his certainty that the next potential client to bring up a contract on another Empress is likely to eat sharp steel for so much as a passing light-hearted joke on the matter.

Back on point: the second and more concentrated version of J&S is, naturally, plenty powerful enough to annihilate the contagion carried by the rats. More than that, it's toxic enough to kill them en masse. And this is where the barbaric genius of the cleansing process came into play: the linen-shrouded bodies of the unclaimed deceased yet to sink into the Wrenhaven were doused in a generous quantity of the high-caliber J&S. Then the corpses -- the one food source guaranteed to pique the interests of the rabid bull rats responsible for the contagion -- were scattered in corners and alleyways throughout the districts with the highest exposure. There were complaints about the grotesque methodology, but by the very nature of the formula used, there was no threat of the sterilised corpses themselves spreading the plague.

And just like that, several problems just sort of... resolved themselves, over the next few weeks. Gradually the poisoned cadavers disappeared (a relief for the already suspicious river water, if not the fattened hagfish in it) and were replaced by the bodies of rats turning bellies-up in the gutters. When the human corpses ran out, and with no fresh ones hitting the ground due to the newfound stability of the treated survivors, the vicious rats soon turned to cannibalism. Dead rats disappeared, and were replaced by more dead rats, ad infinitum, until only a historically low population of the garden-variety, unaggressive, and most importantly uninfected native breed of rodents remained. The only Dunwall citizens dismayed by this turn of events were the local fleas and stray cats. And perhaps rat enthusiasts, but in light of the preceding turmoil, they're probably at an all-time low as well. What pet stores remain after the crisis now offer only the occasional hamster to those in want of furry companionship smaller than a yappy toy dog or a stuffed teddy bear. Non-negotiable.

So, as it stands for the current predicament of the larder, there's virtually no reason for concern that the rats in question are a sign of the plague rearing its ugly head again, even disregarding the fact that a huge stockpile of J&S remains in safe-keeping, _just in case_. But nonetheless, the kitchen staff are at their wits' end with worry from baseless rumors. And it's understandable. With all the rebuilding, restabilizing, and relief left to do, and only a handful of months' distance between Dunwall and the worst epidemic in Gristol's personal history, it's only natural that the fear has not yet receded from their minds.

And that's how, after weeks of brave combat between the staff and the scurrying intruders (and weeks of meals conspicuously lacking in foods of a potato-ish variety), Corvo finds himself in a series of disused tunnels under Dunwall Tower, sometimes stooping, sometimes crawling, always cursing his increasingly renowned skill at getting in and out of impossible places. It got him out of Coldridge, sure. But then it got him here.

Generally speaking, the job of waging war with the pesky vermin _would_ be beneath the Lord Protector's standing, but the problem lies in the fact that the guards press-ganged into investigating the invasions in the larder determined that the furry infiltrators' point of entry is via an obsolete escape route from the Tower, excavated before the birth of the Empire in more troubled times (difficult as it is to believe such a thing could have existed). The tunnels were always rather suspect from the beginning, due to the veins of soft sedimentary rock that intercept their layout. Compromised by the very digging that established the escape route, and under constant siege by small underground streams, they're a cave in waiting to happen. A well-meaning architect, at some point generations past, attempted to alleviate the problem with an intricate lattice of wooden supports, but the self-same moisture that endangers the rock has wreaked absolute havoc on the now-rotten network.

And then there's the very nature of the tunnels' layout; in the manner of passages within the sacred tombs of the very oldest and wildest parts of Serkonen, the escape route is designed with dozens of forking paths, dead ends, pitfalls, and switchbacks intended to belay whatever unwise pursuers might follow the fleeing royalty and their map-wielding escorts into the depths. With the destruction of some tunnels and the births of others by the occasional cave-ins, the whole network has become rife with uncharted routes going spirits-know-where, and is contemporarily a deadly labyrinth dreamed up by the cruelest and most sophomoric of architects: nature herself.

He's reminded unpleasantly of Sokolov's experiments with rats in booby-trapped mazes.

Naturally, Corvo was unanimously voted the only man capable of braving the hidden depths unscathed, one fine day with no more pressing matters to stall the inevitable. And here he is, armed with, of all things -- in addition to his customary blade and crossbow, which are never more than an arms' length away from him even with the recent lull in action which will, hopefully, continue into the foreseeable future -- numerous samples of half-spoiled meat unfit for the young Empress' consumption, lovingly marinaded with high-molarity J&S. He argued, if such a word can be used in reference to the glaring and monosyllabic grumbling of a man so chronically quiet, but all his protests fell flat in the face of his Empress' authority. Especially once she opted to play dirty, and employed That Look against him.

Belly-crawling through a tunnel as narrow as the cholesterol-clogged veins of any gluttonous aristocrat is second-nature by now, and so there's plenty of spare room leftover in Corvo's thoughts to lament the day the little girl with stars and hero worship in her eyes got old enough and devious enough to perfect the art of playing her guardian like a well-tuned fiddle with the slightest wobble of her lower lip.

The going is slow and tedious, but Corvo makes his way through the labyrinth methodically, stopping frequently to check the outdated map (correcting it often, with an irritated flourish that leaves several holes in the yellowed, crackling paper) and listen for the telltale shifting of rock or the clatter of falling rubble. He could probably list any number of more dignified ways a Lord Protector-turned-assassin-turned-Lord Protector might die than crushed under volcanic rock beneath his own home whilst assassinating rats of all things. Despite everything, the odds of that are actually pretty slim, but that doesn't mean he's willing to take chances. If nothing else, the past year has taught him that his luck, his sense of timing, and most of all his estimation of danger (he thinks hatefully of Burrows first, and then, with the bitter alkaline taste of betrayal still staling on the back of his tongue, he thinks of the Loyalists) are not precisely up to par.

Through all the pauses and the occasional backtracks from completely clogged tunnels to trace circuitous side-routes, and with his dark vision keenly lighting the way, he tracks the pockets of rodent infestation by their glittering gold auras through the walls and generously leaves them lethal morsels outside their holes -- and to top that off, a sprinkling on the stone floor from the vials of toxic J&S he brought with him, for the runts too slow or too weak to get first pick of the last supper. That'll teach 'em.

And as the path of narrative must go, it's when he reaches the end of this otherwise uneventful journey that things take a turn, though he doesn't recognize it at the time. He stands at the end of the long and winding escape route at last, in the afternoon light seeping through the mouth of the tunnel where it vomits its vermin and stale, ancient air onto a steep sandy path to the shore below. He's in the midst of taking one last account of his heavily annotated map to ensure he didn't miss any important side-avenues when something catches his eye.

His dark vision still in use, he notices in his peripheral a strange glow behind a wall. It's strange in that it's not moving -- something of note, but not a rat. How the supernatural second-sight is able to quantify the relative importance of inanimate objects in his surroundings is a mystery he's never quite unraveled, but one he's long since set aside as too much of a headache to delve into past the surface. He's by no means a dull man, but he is a man whose finely-honed sense of purpose is centered very specifically on his very specialized job, so if Piero's strange sciences are an entirely different language to him, magic is a whole other can of eels alltogether.

Corvo narrows his eyes in the direction of the glowing silhouette, carefully folding and pocketing his map. The thing isn't all that far away, behind a rough-hewn wall, but it's _just_ far enough to be rather faint, its shape difficult to determine. He can tell only that it's about the size of his own hand. After some investigation he finds the path that leads to it, a jagged natural crevice in the wall barely wide enough to fit his arm through. Planting his hands on either side of the aperture, he leans his ear close to listen.

 _Whispers, wails, howls, growls_ \-- the unmistakably eldritch keening of a whalebone rune.

Curious. He hasn't thought much of the Void and its enigmatic keeper since the throne was settled six months, a busy eternity past. When all is said and done, the Markon his hand has become just a part of his skin, overlooked in his day-to-day duties whenever his mind is occupied (which is always). His powers were second-nature by the time the Pendleton twins were receiving their new close-cropped haircuts and matching tongue trimmings. His dreams have become dull, ordinary. His dreams are, in effect, his own again. Not that it's been much of an improvement over the eerie vistas of the Void; by and large, when he remembers what he's dreamt come morning, he remembers only nightmares. Some are awful, the kind of shakes- and cold sweat-inducing horrors that can only be shaped by cruel memory -- Jessamine's last breath, the bowels of Coldridge, the winding avenues of the Flooded District, all twisted by dream-logic into surrealist stream-of-consciousness monstrosities that make the reality of those memories seem almost pleasant by comparison.

Others are more plain, ridiculous in nature, unsettling in their own way but a relief considering the alternative: the unwanted pinching and groping of drunken and horny noblewomen, whose hands have mysteriously transmogrified into lobster claws; Corvo struggling to maintain his stern glare at Emily's elbow during council with her advisors, in spite of the tittering all around because he was in such a rush he somehow arrived in naught but his weapons belt, his boots, and his smallclothes; visiting his nieces and nephews back in Serkonos, only to have them run with shrill screams of pants-messing terror from him, leaving him confused and heartbroken with arms spread wide for embraces not given until he realizes he's forgotten to take the mask off.

All in all, he's not seen hide nor hair of the Outsider, in his dreams or out, since Emily's return to her rightful place. He presumes he's no longer interesting; the Outsider had his show, and has moved on to his next pet project, as is his way. No love lost there, anyway. Corvo appreciated his help -- still does, considering the trek he just took through the dark, which could have been a lot worse -- but not his gloomy outlook on world events. Corvo's life has been dreary enough in recent days without the input of the world's most morbidly-amused spectator.

Still, he decides, it couldn't hurt to collect another rune. He knows he'll never be so lax as to let the events of a year ago happen again under his watch, or any other dangers to the throne for that matter. Not while he's still able to draw his sword, his breath. Hell, teeth and nails, come that. Continuing to hone the powers gifted to him by his mildly unpleasant benefactor in the interests of keeping a fine edge just seems prudent.

He casts about and, of course, never has to look far to find a rat, at least not down here in the natural caves so far away from where the plague and the subsequent poisonings hit. In no time at all he's scurrying in its borrowed flesh through the crack in the wall -- hoping distantly and perhaps a little belatedly that there'll be more room on the other side to take the rune in his own too-large hands. And an alternative exit. Or at least another convenient rat.

He lucks out, and once he's back in his own skin he pauses for an odd moment to consider, inanely, whether to thank the spirits or to thank the Outsider that he got two out of the three. The crack led to a small but breathable space, a fissure three paces wide and twice so many long; as far as he can see looking up, its breadth is more or less consistent up to where the golden sunlight pours down from some forty feet of easily climbable rock overhead.

Turning his attention back to the rune, he discovers it's not just a random throwaway that fell through the cracks -- literally -- but a dedicated shrine, built by one of the strange deity's many and usually violently insane acolytes. This one in particular had either likewise been gifted with the power of possession, or had a sturdy length of rope and nothing more productive or healthy to do. But the shrine looks like it's been neglected for some time; the candles are long since cold puddles of melted wax pooling on the floor and dripping down convenient spurs of rock, and the once-purple draperies have gone gray and threadbare with time and the elements. The rune survived, at least. They always do.

Perhaps a bit worse for the wear, though. As he steps closer, Corvo wonders if he imagines the faintness of its troublesome aura. Did they always sing so softly, or has his memory just been dulled by so long spent in boring normality, away from the pursuit of the eerie artifacts?

He considers the thing a moment longer, and eventually plucks it carefully from its sacred (sacrilegious) perch. He's as surprised that nothing happens as he is to find he's a little disappointed by that fact. Odd though it sounds even in his own thoughts, he wanted somewhat to thank the Outsider for his help what seems like forever ago. He knows it would mean next to nothing to the ageless thing that only wears a boy's face for show, but the consistent reliability of his gift when everything else seemed to go horribly awry meant something to Corvo, at least, during those dark times.

Perhaps the shrine is too old to still hold the Outsider's attention -- too tattered, too neglected, no longer sacred. Corvo shrugs it off and turns to leave.  
Of course, it's then that he feels the air grow cold, thick with moisture and crisply electric like seaspray in bitter winter. The sunlight from above doesn't dwindle, but it seems to weaken as if strangled by the shadows that slither out from the shrine.

Again Corvo is struck by the strange thought that it's _changed_ ; the shadows are translucent, not the thick opaque bands of smoky dark he remembers. The purplish glow is faint, sickly, and flickers fit to snuff out like a candle in a robust wind at any moment.

The Outsider takes shape. Barely. There's his distinct silhouette in the writhing dark, half transparent and only half-formed -- patches of him remain absent, in a way reminiscent of a rag doll that a wolfhound's gotten hold of. He's full of tattered holes and ragged edges that flutter on a phantom breeze. A whole arm is gone, and half of his face to the inclusion of one oil-spill black eye. His torso is in shambles. It doesn't look like he's been injured or damaged, the idea is laughable. It's just that he's not quite fully _here_.

"Corvo." The Outsider pauses at length, and Corvo waits patiently, wondering if perhaps the disrepair of the shrine that doesn't _prevent_ his appearance, per se, does indeed serve as a... a _poor conduit_. Too weak to bring him through completely into the realm of the physical. Even his voice sounds distant, echoing from the furthest depths of the Void, though the passionless monotone is the same. The Outsider's tattered head tilts back, and Corvo thinks, to his own discomfort, that if the creature were ever half so human as he looks he might be taking a deep breath right about now. Something about that tiny gesture feels too much like the Outsider's way of steeling himself. Gathering strength enough to speak. "Corvo," he begins again, haltingly. "I need--"

And whatever connection brought him here is severed unceremoniously. No sound or flash of darklight heralds the Outsider's sudden disappearance from his place over the shrine. He's just gone, and the warmth and light rushes back in all at once as if he were never there.

Corvo holds the rune numbly in his palm, turns it over, traces its alien sigils and looks between it and the woebegotten shrine. He stands there for some time, just in case. He wonders what made the Outsider, of all people, of all _things_ , seem... drawn. Haggard. He wonders what the Outsider was about to say. He wonders what a deity could possibly _need_. Least of all from a mortal man.

Eventually Corvo leaves in silence, deeply troubled by the encounter.


	2. Interlude, or "Pissing Off Poseidon"

 

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!  
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—  
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow  
I shot the ALBATROSS.  
  
 **\- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, _The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_**

* * *

 

They come by to taunt him, now and then.

He doesn't mind it the way they think he does. He stands tall and proud, not to spite them but simply because that is the nature of what he is.

He doesn't hover, because he doesn't have the strength to, not anymore -- but he still has strength enough to stand on the borrowed feet of the false visage he's caged in, worn black boots steady on clean white marble. He stands with his back straight, arms sometimes crossed over his chest, or hands sometimes clasped palm-to-palm behind his back, clacking his rings together in quiet contemplation of the trap.

He might have rewarded such ambitious men as these, had he known. How long must they have planned this? Generations, surely. This did not come together so neatly within one short, human lifetime.

And such care! Even _he_ never heard their whispers buoyed on the mists of the Void, which divulges even the best-kept secrets of kings and assassins, past and future, unravels them like strings of brightly singing stars before the eyes of its master.

That they figured out how to make it _work_ , and to keep him in the dark until the precise moment they were ready, and he _wasn't_ \--

It's efficient.

It's genius.

It's _refreshing_.

He smiles at the white whorls and waves that spin like galaxies across the shimmering incorporeal walls of his cage, at the runes on the floor that anchor it and at the acolytes bent in tedious concentration, at their chants that charge the trap. He paces its perimeter, looking for all the world like a cornered and hungry beast to them -- he reaches out a steady hand, and gingerly traces the wall with curious fingers. A churning wake of white light follows their path, and he can feel the burn of the touch on the tips of his digits, the electric shock-numbness up his arm when direct contact gluts raw magic hungrily from his form.

He smiles again.

Truly magnificent.

It's just a shame, the unspeakable things he's going to do to them when he gets out of here. Not out of _spite_ , of course.

Simply because that is the nature of what he _is._


	3. The Pitfalls of Wet Work

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, _fuck me running._
> 
> I'm new to Dishonored, and haven't had the chance yet to peruse all the fine art and writings the rest of the fandom's cooked up. Just today, though, I discovered there's already a work -- here on AO3, no less -- with a remarkably similar plot to what I have planned. Don't I feel silly?
> 
> Since the author's muse has already gone to all the trouble of mollywhopping him with inspiration, he shan't stop this monstrosity in its tracks just yet -- but wanted to sheepishly assure anyone bothering to read this piece of garbage that the similarities to _The Lighthouse_ by TemporalRiot is purely coincidental.
> 
> I just hope the thread of plot takes this thing into a unique direction to make it worth reading.
> 
> I also recommend reading TemporalRiot's work -- it's intriguing, and has _**at least**_ 200% more Samuel Beechworth than my own. And the world could always do with more Sams, just saying.
> 
> As usual:
> 
> Cheers. <3

In them realities for you and me--in them poems for you and me;

In them, not yourself--you and your soul enclose all things, regardless of estimation;

In them the development good--in them, all themes and hints.

I do not affirm what you see beyond is futile--I do not advise you to stop;

I do not say leadings you thought great are not great;

But I say that none lead to greater than those lead to.

  
**\- Walt Whitman, _To Working Men_**   


 

* * *

 

 

Daud is having a no good, horrible, very bad day indeed.

"Hold still, sir," comes the muffled gripe through the initiate's mask. "Er, if you don't mind." He trails off meekly, ending with an embarrassed cough when he remembers he's not dealing with just another patient.

Even with everything, and even while gritting his teeth against the pain in his arm (which isn't helped much by the initiate's _goddamn poking and prodding_ ), Daud still takes a moment to remind himself of his current favorite joke: that the newest addition to the Whalers' ranks was a doctor, before all this. From saving lives to taking them -- at least the boy's résumé can never be said to lack for variety.

Unsurprisingly, Daud has a bit of a soft spot for bitter irony and gallows humor. Has to, in his line of work. See enough of a man's insides and it's hard to summon up the wherewithal to laugh at the odd pun or naughty limmerick that gets the average working man guffawing. Those jokes belong to another life, one men who professionally _take_ lives can't return to, and prefer not to think about too much. But you learn to appreciate dark humor, because otherwise there's no humor at all and you wind up with bats in the belfry. For instance, Daud loves all the old euphemisms for the gallows itself -- the "deadly nevergreen" that bears fruit all year, the "wild mare" that was foaled by an acorn. _Ha._ And the ones for being hanged? "Dancing on air," they call it. "Climbing up the ladder to bed." Shit like that never gets old. Murder gets a few good ones, too -- on an average day at work he "ventilates," "takes care of," and "does in" any number of men and women who ought to have been more careful whose expensive shoes they trod on. Irony? His whole _world_ is irony.

True, he doesn't always enjoy it. After all, he's the man who killed an empress in front of her own bodyguard, and nearly got the poor sod executed for the crime. Then got himself spared by the same after a thorough and thoroughly deserved thrashing.

He still winces at those memories. Internally. Daud doesn't flinch much on the outside. Even with a doctor- _cum_ -assassin prodding at a compound fracture in his left arm he keeps as straight a face as a guilty Overseer at sermon, but in that regard the length of leather between his teeth and the healthy dose of whiskey still stinging on his tongue certainly aren't hurting the situation.

Having someone around with skill in medicine is a boon, to be sure, for the sake of training injuries that can't be fixed with a few shots of Elixir and a brusque "suck it up." They don't usually worry much about on-the-job injuries; given the very nature of the job, if someone screws the pooch the only thing getting patched up is a new vacancy in the roster. Even the best doctor can't do much for a guard's sword in the gullet, and this one's only halfway decent by Daud's estimation. (Then again, in just about everything, Daud's 'halfway decent' more or less equates anyone else's 'damn good.' A man in the business of wet work doesn't get much farther than six feet under on low standards.)

For Daud, that means that right now he's lucky to be feeling anything at all. Really, what hurts most is probably his pride.

"Sho your transhvershal jusht... fell out, haffway acrossh?" Janice stands with one shoulder propped against the wall, a bitten apple forgotten in her gloved hand, and the missing bite likewise forgotten in her mouth if the flash of white mush peeking out from within from her puffed-up cheek is any indication. She's got nearly the most seniority of the remaining Whalers -- hasn't been around as long as Billie was, but long enough to technically qualify for teasing rights regarding Daud's spectacular swan-dive onto the cobbles on the last job. The phrases "old blood" and "new blood" get tossed around in reference to time-in-service, having a special meaning among their ranks and serving as another fine example of how black humor is as contagious among assassins as the plague is among, well, everyone.

He's lucky she's not especially bright, despite her skill for the kill. The ribbing won't begin until she's had plenty of time to think up a passably funny joke. He gives it three days minimum. _Probably_ being generous.

For a moment Daud glares at her over the candles the newbie has employed for the procedure (he doesn't typically learn names until they've survived three jobs; until then it's usually something nondescript like "hey you," or if he needs a specific individual's attention, the first unique descriptor that springs to mind. Past examples range from "girl-hands" to "bad haircut" to "harelip." He's the one who wrote the rulebook, and there's nothing in it about hurting precious little feelings.) He weighs the pros and cons of spitting out the leather strip in his teeth to answer, or maybe just to tell her to piss off, and is just thinking, _fuck it all, I'm Dau-_ -

But there's an audible _**crack** _ of jagged bones being reset and he bites back a choked shout that ends in a low groan. He decides maybe he'll keep the thing a while longer, in the interests of keeping his teeth and tongue intact. There's a whimper of a terrified "sorry" from the doc's direction, but Daud doesn't really hear it.

When his thoughts -- scattered by pain like so many frightened birds -- finally return and piece back together into some semblance of sense, he nods jerkily.

Janice remembers to swallow her mouthful of spit-warmed apple sludge, and takes another slow bite as she considers the information. It's clear she's thinking hard on the matter. Daud finds himself vaguely hoping the unprecedented strain overheats her tiny brain and sets her ginger hair on fire. Schadenfreude would be a welcome distraction from the dull throb in his broken arm, occasionally punctuated by a feeling like broken glass being methodically shoved through it just in case he forgets just how badly he screwed up.

"Okay, almost there, sir, just a few more--"

A series of crunches and snaps later, Daud realizes Janice is talking again, though her voice is an awful long way off and he rather wishes it would stay that way. He's not sure when he thumped his clammy forehead down on the desk the doc's stretched his arm across for the grisly work, but he reluctantly turns it to rest his cheek on the cool, grimy wood. He looks blearily in Janice's direction and prompts her to repeat herself with a grunt that sort of has a question mark in it somewhere.

"I _said_ , d'you think you did summat to make Him testy?" Daud can hear the capital H in the pointed way she says it, as if he's the daft one who couldn't catch context clues with a trawler.

Daud answers with another grunt in the negative as he sits up, glancing warily at the doc to see what he's up to now. The boy is busy at work running a sewing needle through a thimble of cheap, strong whiskey; as Daud watches, he puts the doused needle to the candle flame and holds it there, twisting it slowly with practiced dexterity. The boy catches his eye, and has the decency to look sheepish. "Not much left to do, sir. It's set, just have to sterilize and stitch, then rig up a sturdy splint."

Given he's got a moment to breathe, Daud spits out the length of leather. "Sterilize?" he asks hoarsely.

The boy nods meekly to the whiskey. Daud would frown, but he's already doing that anyway; he snatches up the bottle, since it's not in use just yet, and takes a slug for luck. The doc doesn't protest. He's a good kid, all things considered. Twenty-something, aristocratic upbringing but at the bottom of the food chain -- from the side of the estates too close to river and the poor districts to keep the plague at bay. His family was nearly annihilated, his modestly fine house left a shambles probably still being cleared out and readied to auction off to the highest bidder as a quaint little place to keep the bastards and the inbred hidden away.

Daud makes a point of knowing things like this about his men.

He also knows, for instance, that the doc sent the better portion of his pay to his sister and her kids (two jobs under his belt so far, a third being lined up, so Daud might just have to learn that name soon enough). Pretty little family, by all accounts. Jewelry and satin dresses all pawned off for food, and the sister who used to be noble is now a scullery maid for the two Ladies Boyle, with nary a clue in the world how her loving brother got his hands on the money he's been faithfully sending her way. He'd tell the boy just what his sister will think of him if she ever finds out how much blood is on those coins, but...

It's better not to get too invested. The doc's choices are his own, and he can live with the consequences so long as the Whalers don't get dragged down with him.

"Maybe he's taking the piss out of you." Daud glances askance at Janice again.

"You think so?" The tone is neither sarcastic, nor genuinely curious. Mostly, it's derogatory. He doesn't figure Janice thinks much of anything that's worth half a tarnished coin of one. She doesn't catch on, but he didn't expect her to. She just nods sagely.

"He's a tricky one, you said yourself. Six months looking for a Delilah, and weren't _that_ a laurgh?" She shrugs. "Maybe he's just getting his jollies again."

Daud shakes his head, watching the needle cool in one gloved hand while the doc preps some sturdy thread with the other. "He's not some snot-nosed kid with a hand lens, Jan; he doesn't _personally_ fuck with the ants just to see them squirm. Better to get his 'jollies' handing the lens to the oddest ant he can find and watching to see what he'll do with it."

"And now he's taking yours away. Maybe gave it to an odder ant?"

Daud snorts a half-laugh without mirth. "No need to, it's not a one-of-a-kind gift. In keeping with the metaphor I'd say he has one for every ant in the hill. Just because he doesn't hand them out left and right doesn't mean he _couldn't_."

"So why?" she asks, brow furrowed and voice tinged with an obvious frustration.

Daud doesn't answer, watching the doc grab the bottle. The obvious response, really, would be 'the fuck should I know? I look like a god to you?' But it's not really worth it. He chokes off a grunt of pain when the whiskey splashes over the wound across his forearm, and is quiet when the needle jabs in. It's not as bad as setting the bone. It's a pain he can shove to the back of his mind with the rest of his astounding collection of remembered hurts. And while it's rotting there he leaves it behind, treking down other mental avenues, receding for a little bit from the present to mull over the past.

This isn't just because he's not interesting anymore. Daud has met others who had held the Outsider's curious gaze, however briefly; they're never any less powerful even after he's written them off as old news and moved on to bigger and better things. He doesn't dissect his toys when he's done with them, strip away what he put on them to apply to the next little doll in his collection. He just leaves them, abandons them on the spot exactly as they are, with a childish disregard for the consequences of leaving dangerous toys strewn unattended about the playground.

Dangerous little dolls...

"Coin for your thoughts, sir?" the doc asks quietly, eyes never leaving the rhythmic zig-zag pattern his hands weave as they string Daud's raw skin closed. Daud watches the deft movements of the doc's hands detachedly for a moment, turning his thoughts over and over and looking at them from different angles. Coming to the end of his meanderings, he takes another slug off the whiskey bottle, and slams it back down decisively.

"Just thinking it's high time I pay my Granny a visit..."


	4. None Do Slacken, None Can Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, one-sided Granny Rags/The Outsider isn't in the tags and wasn't really planned but it's kind of a given, isn't it?
> 
> I meant to post this _after_ the next chapter, but it wouldn't leave me alone, and I figure I can make it work.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seem to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

**\- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, _Sonnets from the Portuguese 43_**

 

* * *

 

To sleep, perchance to dream...

She stands at the epicenter of the swirling chaos, her hair unpinned. It spins out behind her in gentle waves, black as iron, black as the depths of the seas -- _black as his eyes._

Cracks and crevices stretch out languidly across the endless blue, long jagged gorges of empty nothing that seem to suck away the misty atmosphere both above and below, and off to every side. They're not so large, now, but they're growing; ever widening, these arrogant smirks of black black emptiness that feast on the soft blue hues of the dying Void without care, without regard.

Her love is not home, not truly. But she is here, to care for the Void in his stead.

Gone are the wrinkles, the meandering of blue veins mapping out misspent decades under fragile skin. Gone are the cataracts and the liver spots. Gone are the aches and pains, the creaking memory of a century. Gone is the yellow of jaundice, and the brown stains on worn old teeth. Gone are the tears and tatters in her fine dress, the greying of an age.

She stands resplendant in velvet and satin and silk in all His favorite hues -- the blues, the purples, the golds -- draped over skin the color of sunbleached bones. Creamy, smooth, unblemished. Perfect. A bitter, wise smile tugs at the corners of her scarlet lips as the oil fires burn at her feet, cutting sigils into the stark gray fractals of shattered earth that wheel in a slow, esoteric dance like a thousand thousand ouroboros around the empty heart of the Void. She cuts the ancient symbols, raises the lattice of great bones, and digs in for the siege of the immense Nothing against the kingdom of her Lord.

She will hold fast. She will man the battlements, and hold back the tide until her love returns fully.

A shade of Him watches her work in silence, enigmatic and unknowable in that way of His that she knows and loves. He looks like little so much as a faded banner to a greater age, set upon sometime past by a plague of moths. Each time He gathers Himself together to bridge the span of time and space between them, between here and there, it is less and less of Him that makes it across, and even now He looks as though He will blow away at any moment. But there is no fear on His face, such as it is. One eye like a starless, stormy sky turns to her when she finishes her work.

For now -- her work is never quite done, not until--

"My dear," He rumbles like the ominous first roll of thunder from far, far away. He holds out the remnants of one pale, angular hand. His long fingers remind her of the day she'd wed herself to Him, and tossed her diaries into the hearth; she'd outgrown the petty secrets and yearnings of mortal, _boring_ women of court, and so she sat straight-backed in a finely carved mahogany chair and watched her tear-sodden books of forgotten loves and foolish gossip burn and burn and burn _and burn and burn and burn_ \--

\-- until nothing remained but fragile, feather-soft leaves of ash, husks retaining the exact shape of the lost pages of her squandered life for only so long as it took a breeze to wend its way through her window and shatter it all.

She sees those delicately shaped ashes in his ragged fingers. For this reason, and this reason alone, she hesitates to touch His hand with its gaping fissures and missing joints and tarnished rings, as if her touch will shatter the illusion of solidarity and scatter Him like ash. But she does, _she does,_ and she stares into that one eye, scarcely seeing the holes where He has fallen away, back to where they have Him. All she sees is _Him_.

If she tried, might that she could recall what was in those diaries. She doesn't care to. He is all she has ever needed.

"The children are coming," He says, one thumb stroking familiarly across her fine fingers. How they used to sway and swoon when she would play the harpsicord, and gasp breathlessly that she was born to tickle the ivories and draw forth the sweetest melodies.

Her fingers prefer the rough ivory of carved whalebone, now; her ears prefer their mystic music to all the instruments in the world.

"Help them find me," He says, eye flicking to the reaching maw of a crack making its vicious way slowly (but not slowly enough) toward a tableau of a woman leaping from the Bridge. "We cannot hold it together forever."

She nods, and smiles warmly. Anything. Anything for him, anything he asks -- even if she must wake, and return to the dismal white of blindness, the creaking and pain of arthritis. _Anything._

She stands on tiptoes, and whispers devotion in the ghosting press of her crimson lips across His own, such as they are, the tattered remains of a pale mouth the faint blue of something drowned in the cold and deep.

Vera Moray closes her eyes on the Void.

Granny Rags opens her eyes to nothing.


End file.
